“Ha! Then I really should thank the bureau leaders for looking after me!” Henry Sullivan was amused by Thomas Sherman. Just now, he honestly hadn’t thought much about his own benefits, but hearing Thomas Sherman say this, it seemed that going down to be a factory director for a few years was actually a pretty good gig.

He had worked in the Machinery Department his whole life, and going to enterprises to inspect work was routine, but directly managing an enterprise was a first. Before retiring, getting a taste of being a factory director could be considered a way to enrich his life experience.

As for having a deputy bureau-level treatment after coming back, that was really just a favor from the bureau leaders. Because by the time he returned, he would have reached retirement age anyway. With his qualifications, getting a half-level promotion before retirement was also standard practice in the office.

Thinking of this, Henry Sullivan nodded and said, “If that’s the case, then I’ll accept. But let me be clear up front: since the bureau is entrusting the enterprise to me, you have to give me full authority. Don’t let it happen that when I roll out some policy, people come to the bureau to complain, and the bureau ends up holding me back.”

“Absolutely not!” Thomas Sherman slapped his chest with a loud thump. “Since the bureau is sending you, you’ll have full authority. Our bureau party committee will only retain the right to make suggestions, nothing more.”

“Suggestion rights are no good either,” Henry Sullivan said forcefully. “In enterprise management, the last thing you want is everyone chiming in and meddling. If you say something, should I listen or not? If I do, it interferes with my management. If I don’t, and you make things difficult for me later, what am I supposed to do? You said yourself, I’ll be coming back in a few years—do you think I’d dare offend my direct superiors?”

Haven’t you already offended them enough?

Thomas Sherman silently grumbled in his heart, then said, “Old Zhou, after all, Lin Yi Machinery is still an enterprise under the Second Bureau. We can’t give up all authority, can we?”

“You can retain the right to be informed,” Henry Sullivan said. “Bureau leaders are welcome to inspect Lin Yi Machinery at any time, and you can look at whatever you want—just don’t make random comments.”

“All right then.” Thomas Sherman decided not to argue with Henry Sullivan any further. He knew this old director’s stubbornness all too well.

“Besides not letting us make random comments, do you have any other requests? For example, do you have any requirements for the cadres the bureau will assign to Lin Yi Machinery in the future?” Thomas Sherman asked again.

“Competent, no selfish motives… hmm, and no nepotism,” Henry Sullivan said. As for nepotism, don’t get the wrong idea—he just meant no people with connections.

Thomas Sherman nodded and said, “So, do you have anyone in particular you’d like to bring with you?”

“No,” Henry Sullivan said. After he finished, a sudden thought flashed through his mind, and he said, “Actually, now that you mention it, there is one. The bureau party committee has to give him to me, or I won’t go to Lin Yi Machinery.”

“Who?”

Thomas Sherman was startled. There was actually someone so important that Henry Sullivan would threaten to refuse the post if he didn’t get him—who could this be?

“Little Tang, Franklin Turner,” Henry Sullivan said.

“Franklin Turner?” Thomas Sherman frowned, then suddenly realized, “You mean that college graduate Franklin Turner who joined your office the year before last? The one who’s always talking about taking off with the wind?”

“He said that even a pig can fly if it stands at the wind’s mouth, not that he himself wants to fly,” Henry Sullivan explained.

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“There’s a difference,” Henry Sullivan said seriously. “Little Tang is quite a handsome young man. If you call him a pig, be careful—the young ladies in the bureau might protest to you, the big boss.”

Chapter Two: The Pig That Soars with the Wind

“Do you know what year it is? Some classmates say it’s 1994 AD—congratulations, you’re right!”

“But you’re only half right. Let me tell you, this year isn’t just 1994 AD—it’s also the first year of China’s market economy. Remember, the first year!”

“What is a market economy? You’re all college students, so I’m sure you’ve memorized this answer by heart.”

“But what I want to say is different from what your teachers have told you. I want to say: the market economy is a wild wind blowing from the great desert. If you stand at the mouth of this wind, even a pig can soar with it!”

In a classroom in the second teaching building of Renmin University, a tall, handsome young man stood at the podium, speaking confidently to a room full of students even younger than himself. The naïve students stared at his moving lips, feeling as if they themselves were about to take flight.

Next to the podium stood another young man about the same age as the speaker. He glanced at his companion on the podium, then at the students below, his expression rather complicated.

The one on the podium was none other than the Mechanical Department Second Bureau’s electromechanical office staff member Franklin Turner, whom Thomas Sherman and Henry Sullivan had just mentioned. The one standing beside the podium was Franklin Turner’s college roommate Jack Warren, who now worked as a full-time student counselor in the National Management Department at Renmin University.

Both Franklin Turner and Jack Warren had graduated from Renmin University and were the true senior brothers of the students sitting below.